A lesson in "ringing" someone

Another day of meeting new moms. Today I was busy with 2 groups and a possible pop in on my friend Martha. I went to the city group today and even tho it's only a 10 min drive from where we will be living its considered a different group from the one I went to last Thursday. It's just crazy how small of a radius people are willing to go for it to be considered convenient.  Anyway, today was a house full of moms. Most of the moms are actually not from Cork. What I'm finding out is that the moms who go to theses groups are not from here so they are trying to find other moms in the area. The moms who grew up I'm Cork don't need to meet new moms so they are not as common to theses groups.  Today there were 2 moms from Germany, one has been here for 8 yrs it so and is married to a guy from Cork and the other is married to a German guy that she met here and they have only been here a couple yrs. There was also a mom from Michigan, Australia and 2 from England. The others me where from Ireland but outside of Cork. Crazy but cool. I  even meet a mom that is renting the house rhat our friend Jason rented when he was here in 2010, what a all world. Even tho it had rained earlier the kids and moms were outside having a ball...I guess you can't let a little rain come in the way of your day. 

Next to my breastfeeding group...found out that Shaun gained 11oz since last week!!!! My big boy!!!  One of the moms I had talked to last week totally remembered me...she was telling this other lady my name, Shaun's name & dages, where we where from and the whole bit. I was super impressed because I couldn't even remember her name. Made me feel good and bad all at the same time. My friend Martha popped in and we made plans to meet up once I was done. It's so interesting to talk to the local moms about breastfeeding because the views on it are very different from the breastfeeding moms in the states. Just amazing how much you can learn from just listening. 

I left there to go try to find my friend Martha...it was starting to rain a little again so I thought maybe she went back home... but no. Hahaha. She was heading over to see one of the moms that I met last week at the coffee morning. She was actually going to the host moms house right up the street from where I was. So after finally understanding what she was trying to tell me over the phone I met up with her at the moms house. I was impressed with myself because I was walking in the rain with Shaun strapped to me!!! I never thought I would be doing that. The whole time I'll I could think about was how frizzy my hair was going to be after I get out of the rain. I was just wishing and hoping and praying that the rain would stop so that I would have a chance to save my hair... Thankfully it only rained for a few minutes then it stopped. But once we made it to the moms house it really started to come down...and Martha thought that it would be a good idea to just wait underneath the trees until it stopped raining before we went to her door to see if she was home. I asked her why do we need to wait, I thought you just popped in on people if you were in the area. She was like yes you do pop in on them and it's no bother but if it's raining and you pop in on them sometimes people feel obligated to let you in because they don't want you to be out in the rain so it's hard to tell if they really wanted company or not. So when it was raining the hardest I was out in the rain under a tree waiting to see if we were really going to pop in on the mom or not...crazy. There are all these rules to popping in on somebody... I don't know if I can keep up with it. So after the rain finally stopped we ended up going into the ladies house and having some cake, rice crispy treats, coffee and we hung out for about an hour even though she looked like she was quite busy with her three kids. The mom also agreed with Martha and wax like ring me anytime you are in the area because we are always here...just too weird for me.  Martha explained to me that if they look busy when you ring them (aka stop by) you can stay for maybe an hour. But if they don't look busy you can stay a few hours or even all day depending on what time you got there. I was just floored. You don't just ring some one in the states and then stay for a hr even tho you can tell they are busy. But she just told me over and over that's the Irish way. So we had a good laugh and a nice time with the mom. 

I headed home even tho Martha invited me over for dinner...she is so nice. And she even gave my a nice necklace for Shaun to play with while he nurses...people are just so nice here...

I might ring Martha in Wed but I gave her a heads up so we will see how it goes. 

So good news today...two things actually. 

First we our air shipment will finally be delivered on Wed!!!! It only took 4 weeks to get here. The bad part about that is that this apt is so small we almost don't want to open up the container because its going to get really crowded in here after that. But it has all if Lino's toys and Shaun's swing & height chair so stuff we kind of need...oh the decisions. At least it's here. Next we will have to worry about how we are going to pack up all this crap and move it to the house in Sept...geeze laweeze. 

Second we got a renter for the house!!!! Whoop whoop...only too 7 weeks in the market with 1.5 weeks where we didn't show it because we where moving and only 3 weeks vacant! We are so blessed. The couple that we are renting to have had their fare share of drama and hardship so it's nice to be able to help them out...plus they are renting it for 2yrs and paying the full asking price so that is just amazing for us. God has really been looking out for us. The new renters move in Aug 1 so another blessing from God...we don't have to pay the mortgage!  

So we had a little celebration desert...Mike went down to Issac's to get the toffee pudding so we could have it after dinner. It was pretty darn good and Mike even added ice cream to his so it made it even more delectable. Otherwise I just want to say how much I hate doing laundry in Ireland. Of all the differences and changes the only thing that I truly hate with all my heart is the laundry process. I just want to shoot someone or slice my own wrist!!!!! Since the sun has gone away these last two days doing 1 small load in 20hrs is not possible...I would say it is taking at least 30-36 hrs to dry all the cloths....WHAT THE F#%* is up with that?????  I hate it. Hate it,hate it????  And to make matters worst, I put the cloths outside this evening because the sun decided to come out around 8pm so I thought it would help to dry the cloths quicker. So Mike was leaving to go get something and he moticed that the cloths rack with all the nice clean cloths had fell over into a puddle of water...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  I could have just cried...I've never been so sad in my life about a load of laundry. Grrrrr. So trying to be efficient and get a little sun on the cloths to help speed up the process has only increased the time it's going to take to get the cloths clean. I and still in shock...that hurt my heart I think. Oh well, what can I do big rewash the ones that were impacted and keep on going. 

2 more days until Lino...love and miss him!